In the summer of 2016, we looked at another resort for sale on the North Shore closer to Duluth. The location was closer to where we always stayed and we thought that we had found our place. We went and walked around the grounds twice, and just did not feel a peace that this was the right decision. Whether that was based on God still working in our hearts or perhaps teaching us patience, we would wait almost a year before we found Gooseberry Cabins.

Christopher and I were to be celebrating our 18^th anniversary on June 11, 2017. However due to a wet spring and delayed planting, we were unsure if we could get away by ourselves. So we just did not plan on getting a hotel. We ended up getting done with planting the week of our anniversary, so Christopher started looking around to different places we had stayed on the North Shore looking for a vacancy….and there was none to be had at many of the places….no room at the inns! In his search for a place to stay, he found the website for Gooseberry Cabins which is right next to the place we stayed for our 7^th anniversary, and down the road from the resort where we honeymooned. On their website there was the phrase, “For Sale By Owner”! So he called and they were willing to give us a tour but did not have any vacancies for staying there.

We went up on June 10^th, met Tim & Karen, and toured Gooseberry Cabins. Shortly after the tour started, we were looking at a woodshop they have on the property and Christopher noticed an AWANA sticker in the window of the door. Having been involved with AWANA a lot over the years, we were excited to see that. We sat down with Tim and Karen and started talking business, which led quickly into a conversation about God. We came back the next day to see more of the cabins while they were cleaning and to sit down and eat at my favorite restaurant which happens to be just a couple of miles away, the Rustic Inn and Café.

Over the course of the conversations, we discovered that Tim’s family had owned this for 60 years and were believers, and that his parents had bought the place from a believer before that. My summer bible study was studying that very week about “not being set aside, but being set apart” for God’s purpose. Both Christopher and I were convinced in our souls and had a peace that Gooseberry Cabins was what God was setting apart for us; as well as He had set us apart for this place.

Pulling up Christopher’s lifelong roots from Mapleton was not an easy or quick process. Selling a house is stressful, but selling a farm site, land, and determining family business structure for the future is hard and heart wrenching. Over the course of the 9 months that it would take before we moved to Two Harbors, there were many moments of peace and many days of crazy in trying to work everything out.

I also felt God impressing on me that at this point in my life it was time for me to “Be Still and Know that He is God”, and not to try to control every day or every outcome the way I would want.   This was also a lesson that had repeatedly been shown to me in bible study, BSF, church, radio, blogs, etc. After all the intense exposure to “Be Still”, I figured God was really trying to get a message across to me!

This might seem like a sudden and drastic move and since there was so much uncertainty, we were not comfortable with speaking with too many people about this prior to the move. We did actually move up to the North Shore to run the cabins the first weekend in March and then finalized the sale of our house/land in Mapleton in the middle of April, and now have officially closed on the purchase of the resort as of May 1^st. We did not exclude people from this info because we consider ourselves self-sufficient. We truly were trying to listen to God’s voice and His leading and let that voice be louder than others that might come from people around us.

We are thankful for the people and family who have prayed for us, helped us pack, drove a truck, unpacked a truck, continued to take care of things back in Mapleton, and for the words of encouragement via texting and calling just when we needed them.  We are thankful for Tim & Karen and their waiting patiently while we worked through the steps of selling one business to buy another. We are humbled by this opportunity and we can’t wait to share with you the journey that God continues to lead us on. Stayed tuned for more updates! (and please come see us soon)